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EP21 - Single Stereo Speakers (SSS)

My 21st loudspeakers are implementation of Elias Pekonen's Single Stereo Speakers (SSS). This unique concept utilise single, center-positioned main with front and side firing drivers and actively utilise room reflections as important aspect of sound reproduction.

I'm kind of intrigued by this concept. I have three Visaton B200s I'd like to use this weekend and already have a whole mess of OB baffles I can cobble into a single speaker system.

My questions is: how to hook these up to a two-channel amp? I have seen the hook-up circuit with the psychoacoustic RC circuit but dont understand the "common" instruction. Can you help me with this? Will be intrigued to hear results. Best imaging over a wide area I have heard is with waveguides, but this sounds to be even better, at least on paper.Cheers

I'm kind of intrigued by this concept. I have three Visaton B200s I'd like to use this weekend and already have a whole mess of OB baffles I can cobble into a single speaker system.

My questions is: how to hook these up to a two-channel amp? I have seen the hook-up circuit with the psychoacoustic RC circuit but dont understand the "common" instruction. Can you help me with this? Will be intrigued to hear results. Best imaging over a wide area I have heard is with waveguides, but this sounds to be even better, at least on paper.CheersPeter

Ok, found out the answer to my 'common' question elsewhere. Thanks DIY audio group.And I went ahead and built the single stereo speaker over the weekend. Used three Visaton B200s for the job.Have you ever come across the perfect speaker? Course not, and this isn't either, but in all my years of speaker building this comes closest to pleasing the family. How come? Well, there's only one of them to being with. And that's a win to the Significant Other. The boys reckon it is killer for home theatre.The thing that annoys me most about two speakers is head-in-a-vice imaging. That's why I've always liked constant directivity speakers. This speaker system utterly destroys constant directivity speakers, no question. But like anything in the speaker world there are riders. It's whether or not you can circumvent them that's important. In most rooms I dont think this speaker will work...unless you're prepared to use reflectors to make the side-firing drivers add to the front firing driver. Which means either building ears for them or building reflectors. And then they work a treat.And by that I mean it virtually does not matter where you are sitting (or standing) in the room, the sounds is the same. No, Truly. It is utterly the same, even when you're walking around the room. Spooky it is.And the imaging is about 90 per cent as good. There's not quite the 'there' thing happening you get with good stats, but it's close. Hye, what did you expect? There's only one speaker! I was a skeptic before but I'm now a believer in this concept now.

Just a brief follow-up to this topic. Finally got the cap/resistor values about where they should be because the imaging locked in better after that, seems to be outside of the speaker now, hovering over it, rather than from it. So the psychoacoustic filter does the business.

So what has happened to the SSS project in the intervening two years? Guessing not too much.

It's interesting that so many single-box speakers are now available in shops, mainly cheap and nasty examples. But a few like Naim Mu-so people rave about, perhaps because of their aesthetics and ease of use, lack of wires, as much as how they sound. That said, both people I know who own them used to have good stereo set-ups and both are now happy.

Anyhow, I've stuck with conventional stereo, despite its drawbacks and moved back from open baffle to sealed cylinder speakers using the same Visaton B200s I had in the single speaker stereo unit. Content with that too, especially now they're augmented by a big down-firing cylinder sub with an old 15-inch Tempest driver.

So what has happened to the SSS project in the intervening two years? Guessing not too much.

It's interesting that so many single-box speakers are now available in shops, mainly cheap and nasty examples. But a few like Naim Mu-so people rave about, perhaps because of their aesthetics and ease of use, lack of wires, as much as how they sound. That said, both people I know who own them used to have good stereo set-ups and both are now happy.

Anyhow, I've stuck with conventional stereo, despite its drawbacks and moved back from open baffle to sealed cylinder speakers using the same Visaton B200s I had in the single speaker stereo unit. Content with that too, especially now they're augmented by a big down-firing cylinder sub with an old 15-inch Tempest driver.

That was then. Moved back to stereo of course, though did like the fact that the SSS sounded the same no matter where you were in the room. Now using Mark Audio drivers in Flugel horns, back loaded. Small full range drivers are pretty cool. Also have some Fostex ff125wks in BIB tubes which sound sweet too. I switch between single ended tubes and class d solid state amps. Happy with these, though intend to try a speaker with A7.3s for mids and tops and eight inch drivers for bass. Just not sure about enclosure for this yet.